What policies for globalising cities? Rethinking the urban policy agenda

Dublin Core

At a time of increasing globalisation processes, the search for competitiveness in urban regions has become a major political target for both local and central governments. The importance of the cities and their metropolitan areas in the national economy and their major role as global nodes in the international market is increasing the attention which they are receiving. There is a general feeling, shared by both national and local governmental representatives that the current approach to urban policies is not the correct one to face the new challenges which large cities, in a context of increasing global competitiveness, have to deal with today.

In short, in OECD member countries, there is an increasing acknowledgment of the importance of policies that address specific urban issues. It is not only a matter of corrective measures, directed towards the solving of traditional urban problems, such as urban uncontrolled expansion, degradation of punctual districts, due to the concentration of environmental and social problems, but also the need to tackle proactive actions to encourage competitiveness and attractiveness. The goal of the conference was to engage a wide number of those interested, including city leaders and representatives of both regional and central governments, to widen the approach with which they envisage urban policies.

More specifically, the conference was organised along the following two lines:

How can the presence of the cities be made stronger in the context of “implicit urban policies” (not specifically urban), which strongly affect the standards of urban development, but which rarely take into consideration its necessary space implications?
If one agrees that a strong and effective urban policy, able to allow the cities to successfully face the globalisation processes, cannot be the exclusive competence of national or regional governments, which new and more flexible intergovernmental joint actions are needed?